Ryan and his GOP friends, you see, wanted an 18-month extension on the contentious spending bill, in order to avoid that key government function to become a campaign issue during the 2018 midterms. Democrats, of course, want such basic politics to be part of the political campaign they hope will see them reclaim at least some measure of power in Washington.

Trump, possibly because he’s sick of the GOP Congress making him look bad, went ahead and accepted Democrats’ offer of a three-month extension. This means that the ugliest and most contentious debate Congress has—other than, say, polite conversation about sentencing Americans to death by yanking away their healthcare—will now happen in December.

At the same time, Congress will have to take up the matter of whether to defend the medical marijuana movement from a crackdown led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions yet again.

“The industry and the patients who rely on it for access to medicine just got some relief, even if it’s only temporary,” said Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority legalization advocacy group, in a statement provided to HIGH TIMES. “But the uncertainty about whether the continued protections for next year that are included in the Senate’s FY2018 bill will be adopted or if the House’s blocking tactics will instead prove successful is creating anxiety that seriously ill people who need medical cannabis just don’t deserve. It would be a disaster if Congress gave Jeff Sessions a green light to go after patients and providers in December.”

Despite wide support from the American public and die-hard Trump Republicans representing states where cannabis is legal, House GOP leadership displayed stunning and outright troubling hostility towards cannabis reform this week.

In addition to the medical marijuana protections, Republicans on the House Rules committee also blocked legislation that would have allowed cannabis businesses to use bank accounts and set up legal recreational marijuana sales in Washington, D.C., where cannabis has been legal for adults for some time. Some of these same Republicans were among the 90 wraiths who also voted against spending money on disaster relief. So we know they’re stone-hearted monsters.

That’s a waste of time: Trump’s playing the same game he always has, a Monopoly of Me-First. Cutting a bipartisan deal is exactly what Trump promised he would do during his campaign, and lo—the press is praising him for it!

Trump gets to bask in the warm glow of adulation, his favorite thing in the world, and by accident, cannabis gets what it needs.

Did Trump know what he was doing? Yes—he knew he was tired of nine months of getting nothing done in Congress. If that means stumbling into a weed-friendly move, so be it.